no title

Take it slow

With roads now jammed with construction, the Ohio Department of Transportation urges drivers to give highway workers a brake, for their safety and yours.

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoChris Russell | DISPATCHThe highway workers at this project on I-71 might be protected by a concrete barrier, but the danger still exists to drivers in the construction zone. Drivers constituted the majority of fatalities in last year’s construction-zone crashes.

More Articles

Seventeen crumpled orange-and-white construction barrels were placed in a Columbus State
Community College parking lot yesterday, silent memorials to those who died in transportation work
zones across Ohio last year.

In 2010, 10 people died in construction-zone crashes.

“These are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, family members who will never come home and who
will always be missed,” Jerry Wray, director of the Ohio Department of Transportation, said during
an event to raise awareness of the need for safe driving through construction projects.

The transportation agency launched its “Don’t Barrel through Work Zones” campaign yesterday as
the I-71/670 project continues. Next week is National Work Zone Awareness Week.

There are dozens of road projects springing up across Ohio.

The $200 million I-71/670 project covers about 1.7 miles of road and started nine months ago. It
is scheduled for completion in 2014.

When it can, Columbus police sends extra officers to the area to clock drivers in the 45 mph
work zones, said Lt. Brent Mull, who is in charge of traffic operations.

He said there was one day when officers watched a quarter-mile stretch of a construction zone
and wrote 35 citations in 90 minutes.

About 70 percent of those killed in work-zone crashes are drivers, said Bryan Nicol, senior vice
president of CH2M HILL, a design company working on the I-71/670 project.

There were 15 crashes in Kokosing Construction work zones in the past year, including one that
killed a construction worker.

“Two of our employees decided they no longer wanted to work in highway construction,” said Brian
Burgett, president and CEO of Kokosing, which is leading the I-71/670 project.

“They did not want to take the risk of leaving their children fatherless.”

Greg Wood, a construction worker with A&A Safety, who was injured in a work-zone crash in
2009, attended the event yesterday.

Wood was hit from behind by a car going 80 mph in Cuyahoga County. He was thrown 26 feet and
suffered a shattered leg, crushed foot and broken teeth.

He underwent surgery and spent months in a hospital bed and wheelchair.

“That was the scariest thing I’d ever faced,” Wood said. “I admonish you all to remember, safety
is a two-way street.”

Rebecca McKinsey is a fellow in Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Statehouse
News Bureau.